Former NASCAR Cup champion Matt Kenseth has gone from not liking Erik Jones to being the top guy in his corner emotionally, mentally and even in-person.
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Back in 2017, it was announced that Jones would replace Kenseth at Joe Gibbs Racing after the season. But Kenseth still had to get through the season with Jones driving for the JGR-affiliated Furniture Row Racing team.
Kenseth knew Jones was going to be his replacement for the next season. But at the same time, Kenseth used Jones as motivation and incentive to lift his own racing performance — in essence, trying to show team owner Joe Gibbs that he still had it as a driver.
“Matt knew that he was the guy that was going to be out in that situation and ended up moving to make room for myself coming up through there,” Jones told NASCAR.com. “That made it harder to build a relationship.
“I don’t know that there was any animosity from him towards me, and obviously, there was none from me to him. But when you’re getting replaced, it’s never an easy situation.”
While he was still stung by the fact Jones would replace him in the No. 20 Toyota, Kenseth knew it wasn’t personal — it was simply NASCAR-related business.
“I’ve been around it for a long time, and the owners and other people make those decisions,” he said. “It’s not like the driver did it, or he was the owner and let me go.
“To be fair, Erik was Toyota’s guy at the time. He was Kyle’s [Busch] guy, Coach’s [Joe Gibbs] guy and was running really well and having a ton of success. I wasn’t exactly a spring chicken, so if you look at it, objectively, you can’t really blame anyone for that.”
As the old country song goes, it’s ‘Together, again’ for Kenseth and Jones
Fast forward to 2023 and Kenseth and Jones were once again united. Jones was driving for the Jimmie Johnson-co-owned Legacy Motor Club, and the now-retired Kenseth was hired to be a competition advisor. One of Kenseth’s top responsibilities was to help Jones become a better driver.
“Erik and I have always gotten along, but we never really knew each other at a high level at all,” Kenseth told NASCAR.com. “It was somewhat interesting because when I left Gibbs, they decided not to bring me back.
“I wholeheartedly wanted to be back for another year or two before I retired, and they replaced me with Erik, which makes it kind of interesting. The same thing happened with him. I think he had a lot of apprehension because he didn’t know me that well, and he took over that car when I wasn’t there.”
The two eventually went their separate ways. While Kenseth would have liked another year or two before retiring, his forced retirement actually turned out okay for him.
One of the biggest motivating factors for Kenseth was when he finished fourth in the 2017 summer night race at Bristol — proving he still had it as a driver.
“I was really more thinking about, ‘That’s my replacement, and I better run him down and pass him to show him I can still do it better than he can,’” Kenseth said. “I had those thoughts. But I wasn’t thinking anything about the playoffs, I was thinking about trying to win the race.
“It’s human nature. Whoever you’re catching for the lead, you’re always thinking something about them, right? Where you can sniff the victory, your mindset changes a little bit. It’s not just another car, it’s the leader, so you think things like that every once in a while. My brain’s a scary place.”
Jones has rallied up in the Cup standings of late
After finishing fifth last Saturday in the night race at Atlanta, Jones is up to 16th in the Cup standings — the cutoff line for the playoffs — after an outstanding rally of late, climbing from 30th in the standings after Talladega.
This has given Jones motivation and belief that he can still reach the playoffs, since there’s still eight races for him to continue making an upward move in the standings.
Jones knows he still has some way to go, but his relationship and tutelage from Kenseth is definitely helping him. Jones and Kenseth have let bygones be bygones and have put the whole situation at JGR behind them. They’re looking forward, not backward.
“To be totally honest, we started the year not taking as big of a step forward as I expected or was hoping we would take,” Kenseth said. “I feel like we took a pretty big leap within the last [seven or eight] weeks.
“We’ve had cars — both (Jones and teammate John Hunter Nemechek) or one of them — that were capable of running in the top 10. I don’t know if we had cars last year capable of running in the top 10, but once or twice.
“It’s been a big leap, but there’s a long way to go to get to where we want to be.”
